Russia’s new anti-doping programme will be unique, says lawmaker

Moscow, Dec 2 (IANS) Russia’s new national programme on the fight against performance enhancing drugs in sports will be unique, a senior Russian lawmaker from Parliament’s lower house has said.

In his state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the new national anti-doping programe would be ready early next year, reports Tass.

“We are a step ahead of the rest of the world in terms of fight against doping, we were the first to pass a law on the criminal responsibility for the encouragement of doping abuse and we will be the first to adopt a unique program,” Mikhail Dyagteryov, who heads the State Duma’s Committee on Physical Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs, said on Thursday.

Dyagteryov also said that the so-called doping scandal “boosted the fight against this venomous phenomenon”, and added that the government’s stance had always been “zero tolerance to doping.”

The Russian president said earlier in the day that “the so-called doping scandal will encourage us to create in Russia the most advanced system of the fight against this evil (doping).”

“I am saying this basing on the fact that the national anti-doping program will be ready early next year,” Putin added.

On August 7, the IPC decided to bar the whole Russian Paralympic team from taking part in the 2016 Summer Paralympics. The ruling came on the heels of a report delivered earlier in the summer by the Independent Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The commission, led by Canadian sports law professor Richard McLaren, claimed in particular that a total of 35 doping samples were concealed by Russian Paralympic sports between 2012 and 2015. However, it turned out later that not all the stated cases of concealed doping samples concerned the Russian Paralympic Committee.

Nevertheless, the IPC decided on collectively punishing the Russian national team.